In France, they celebrate Epiphany (when the wise men arrived to see Jesus) with the Galette des Rois, King Cake. These are available most of January at bakeries everywhere. This is a pastry roughly the size of a pie that is made out of puff pasty with an almond-based filling. Inside the pastry/cake, a small fève (bean) is hidden, and cooked right in, so no one knows where it is and it will be discovered when the pasty is cut and divided up to be eaten. Whoever find the feve in his/her piece, is the king (or queen, as it were). That person gets to where the crown provided with the cake. Fève literally means "bean", but in this instance, it has come to mean the little porcelain favor that is used in these types of cakes. Traditionally, they were little ceramic baby Jesuses, or something religious. But, often now, there are themed to go with things popular at the moment (Ninja Turtles or whatever...I am making that one up, but things like that).
For our celebration today, I made the recipe that I posted below. It was really good and tasted pretty much like the real thing. Years ago, the year I came back from France when I had met Reynald, I made one totally from scratch using a French recipe. Puff pastry is hard to make from scratch, and is time consuming. It was fun, but no time to do that kind of thing now! So, this new recipe uses frozen puff pastry, which is just as well. I mean, does anyone have time to make that from scratch?
I have a fève that I bought in France the year I met Reynald. It is a little ghost screaming. Kind of weird. I remember getting it from a bakery to take home with me, and that is what they had. But, I have had him for over a decade. I keep it in my jewelry box. In any case, we explained to Luka what was going to happen - we were going to eat this great galette and one of us would be the king. He and I made a crown (it turned out really great - see pics). Of course, I marked where the fève was with a toothpick, because we had to make sure he got it. He was so excited when he did. He was very happy to wear the crown. But, he also wanted us all to share in the "winnings" so he said we were all princes (Axel and Papa) and a princess (me) too. Or, kings and queens, but we said, since he was the king, we were princess and a princess.
He also loved finding the fève, so he wanted us to hide it again in his piece. Reynald did and he was excited to "discover" it all over again. Then, he hid it a few times himself. "Wow! Look, Mommy! Look what I found (hee hee)".
We shared two pieces of the galette with our neighbors and went over there that evening. The wind was blowing really hard and Luka's crown almost blew away. He was very excited to show Jesse and Jennifer and their baby Sean his crown, his fève (and his new little car--unrelated to the galette!) as well as carry and give them their two pieces.
Very fun!
